Volume 1 Issue 10 Evenly Matched
by Serial Spider
Summary: Spider-Man enters the ring.


Serial Spider

3/3/09

_Volume One, Issue Ten_

"_Evenly Matched"_

"Dad?" Gwen said, pushing the door open gently. "Dad? You home?"

"Hey, Gwen, honey. I'm in here."

"Oh," she said, stuffing her coat in the entrance closet. The television droned in the living room. "What are you watching?"

"The, uh… the freelance tournament at the Garden."

"What the _hell?_" she moaned, gliding into the living room. "No one watches wrestling anymore. No one, except for maybe a few fourth graders trying to sound cool. But everyone I know is at this match! Harry, Eddie, and now you're watching it here. My God."

"Lonely?" he asked.

"Nah. I have a paper to right. I just… when did this become so popular?"

"Oh, Gwen, I don't think it's all that amazing. Here, sit with me a few minutes. It's kind of like American Idol, right at the beginning, when everyone's terrible. I mean, these clowns get out here and fight a world-renowned wrestler, and they get the crap beat out of them. I think it's all fake anyway, it's just funny. It's like bad vaudeville."

Gwen was hardly listening. "You eat anything, Dad?"

"No, sweetheart. I was thinking about making some Hot Pockets—"

"Oh, Dad. You can't eat that crap. I'll make tacos."

"Alright, honey. If you say so."

Captain Stacey spread out on the armchair. His face leaned limply on the thick top of the backing, and he rubbed his hand over his face: over his tired eyes, his scarred nose, his stubble prickling on the bottom of his chin.

"Sweetheart, while I'm thinking about it, is Peter still working at Best Buy?"

She leaned her head out of the kitchen, restraining a bemused grin. "At the Geek Squad? No. He quit when he got his job with Doctor Connors."

"Ah, crap. Well, you think he'd look at my laptop at work? It's got a virus or something, I dunno what's the matter with it."

"Sure," she said. "I'll ask him."

Captain Stacey sat up in his seat with a smirk on his lips. A little too quickly, though, and he felt it in his arm, burning at the bicep where his wound was still healing. He grimaced and cleared his throat. "Gwen. It's back on. Come sit down a second and watch this guy."

"Who? The _Guillotine_?" she asked, dramatically reenacting a French execution in the doorframe of the kitchen.

"Yeah," said Captain Stacey. "He's up against some twig in a Halloween Costume. Calls himself Spider-Man."

*

At some point, Peter decided he'd let his ability get to his head. He knew he was out of his mind to get in this tournament, it didn't matter how many walls he could climb. He looked like a buffoon and he was standing in front of thousands of people in Madison Square Garden—_the Garden!_—of all places. And he was up against the Guillotine. Legit. There were no fake blood pouches or choreographed swings. He was _actually _about to get the shit beaten out of him.

Under his feet, the foam mat of the ring compressed. A small puff of air came out of a hole too small to see from the crowd. The whole floor was battered and scratched. He imagined they replaced the cover often for appearance's sake, but now it just served as a testament to how many people had been pummeled on this mat.

And his blood was star-crossed to join it.

Peter had no entrance when he came into the ring. He'd had a rope lifted for him and he pulled himself up. He hardly had the strength to do it, either. Most of his energy was sapped when he signed the stacks of waivers. Each signature drew a little more willpower than the last.

But the Guillotine; what an entrance he had! The whole building went dark. A hushed silence fell over the crowd. Over the loud speakers, a high-pitched man's voice came through in a fake British accent.

"Oh, please, sir. Mercy. Mercy for a poor man!"

And then a single spot fell on the ring, and there he was: a hulking mass of rippling muscle in his briefs, waving wrapped fists to the high heavens.

"The Guillotine," he called and the audience joined him to cry, "shows no mercy!"

The lights went black again and a vicious, hearty slicing sound burst over the loudspeakers. And the imaginary poor man was dead.

A part of Peter regained some strength. Some. When the focus spots blinked on and the ring was illuminated, he was almost laughing under his snow mask. I mean, really, what kind of guy has that cheesy an intro? And honestly, if they really thought about it, it was downright insulting to the masses. Not showing the lower class mercy? Who the hell was watching this match?

A thousand _sans culottes_ turned over in their graves.

And then the referee entered the ring, taking center with a handheld microphone. Peter barely retained the words. You were pinned if you were down for ten seconds. Spider-Man was allowed to sacrifice at any point by calling "forfeit." They explained the rules for a cage match and lowered it to turn the ring into a tall fortress.

"Let's get on with it," bellowed the Guillotine.

Now, it seemed to Peter that surely they told this guy to run his mouth for audience excitement. Because it was just downright rude, and it definitely had to be an infraction to cut off the ref announcing the rules. But there was a wild cheer from the audience and Peter's gloves were on the floor, and he was standing in the center, and he was looking at this shark, and a bell rang in the distance.

Holy shit.

A bell?

It was time.

The Guillotine came charging forward, right at his legs. Peter jumped. And Peter really _jumped_. The Guillotine, standing, went clear under him. Peter landed and then leapt on the guy's back, caught his hands around the man's neck, and twisted. But he didn't twist hard enough, because one massive arm grabbed him by the shirt and flung him.

Peter spun in the air, regaining his balance. And then for the first time in days, he felt, on the back of his neck, a sensation like he'd felt on the first night of his powers. Back then, on the roof, the hairs on his neck had stood up just as he crashed into a ventilation duct. Or rather, just before it happened.

So this time, out of sheer instinct, he turned his head, saw the wall of the cage coming at him, and threw out his hands reflexively. And his hands, spread out like a starfish, stuck to the wires of the cage.

And then he heard something.

It was soft at first, just a gasp from one place in the audience. And then a different sort of sound, someone cajoling him. "Climb, Spider-Boy!"

And so he did. And the Guillotine came running at him, trying to shake him loose from the wall, but dammit, he was Spider-Man, and he kept going up. And when he hit the ceiling, he went even further, gluing his hands to the ceiling with that weird spider secretion that he had going for him.

"Hey, Spider!" called the Guillotine. "Come down here and fight me like a man."

"But I'm just a boy," called Peter. "Mercy. _Mercy for a poor man_."

He didn't know where the words were coming from. The adrenaline, maybe? It wasn't like him to be sarcastic. Not, at least, towards someone nine Peter Parkers in girth.

The audience cried out, some laughing. Someone shouted an insult. Probably the guy who told him to climb.

"Is that a forfeit?" cried the Guillotine.

"Did you just say forfeit?" asked Peter, almost tasting the pleasure of the banter. "Sorry, Guillotine. But this match isn't for pussies."

And he dropped down to the ground, landing delicately on his feet.

"Face me, Smart Guy," he said.

"Oh, you asked for it," said the Guillotine, lunging at him again.

Peter felt the hairs standing up again, and realized that he was seeing the Guillotine's punch just a little slower than it should have been. Slow enough, at least, to side step and watch the man's brick-sized fist pass his face.

"'Face me,' isn't a question," Peter snapped, dodging a hook. "So really, I can't have asked for it."

And then, with all the force and speed his spider skills could muster, he launched a punch at the Guillotine's jaw. The man's head snapped sideways, and Peter lunged at him. But God be damned if he could knock the man down. All the enhanced strength he had was nothing against the manatee-of-the-land that this beast was.

"Not a chance," said the Guillotine, and while Peter was diving at his legs, he felt all eight tons of wrestler collapse on his back.

There was no question in his mind. If the security system on that spider cage hadn't failed at Doc Connor's lab, he'd be dead. Well, actually, he probably wouldn't have gotten in this ring, so he'd probably still be alive. But the point was that not only _did_ he take it, but in that extended sense of time he got when the hairs on his neck stood up, Peter Parker perceived the Guillotine taking a slight bounce off of his back, and took the chance to roll out from under him.

There was a cheer from the audience, and then a louder one, as Peter, noticing the Guillotine was on the ground for a moment, threw a flurry of punches at the guys head. One, two, spittle in the air, and then, unmistakably, blood.

And then Peter, grimacing at the thought that he'd just broken the shmuck's nose, was on top of the bull with his arms wrapped around his neck.

In the back of his head, he could hear his trainer's voice: "Now this choke hold ain't something you just cop out on. 'Cause you set it right, and their face is gonna turn purple, you with me? You gotta actually choke. I mean, this applies to most choke holds, a'ight? They take a kind of will I'm not sure you got yet, kid. But here, you wrap your arms like this, get his head in the crook of one, and make a T with the other. No, point it straight up, that's it. Now, pull, kid. That's it. Okay, now try it on me. When I tap, stop."

And here he was, once again, with his arms locked around a guy's neck, pulling a basic choke. Ordinarily, wrestlers like the guillotine were trained for this kind of thing, and could release in a thousand different ways.

Peter felt spit burst from the guy's mouth when he spoke.

"Get off me, you little shit. Or I'm gonna break your face eight ways to Sunday."

Peter choked harder and brought his head closer. He felt the Guillotine's arms swing up to his own and then the referee on the ground beside them pounding the ground.

"Want me to take you up to the ceiling and drop you?" asked Peter. The pause that followed was unnervingly tangible.

"You're playing me," said the Guillotine. He looked up at Peter, at the sunglasses askew on the kid's face. And for a second, he could see into his eyes. They were staring at him blankly. And there wasn't fear. There wasn't pain. He was sweating, sure, and bleeding; that much was clear. But he wasn't joking.

"Give me some dignity," said the Guillotine. The man tossed Peter off his back and the crowd went wild. It was the first failed pin of the match.

Peter wasn't going to let there be a second.

But then, suddenly, he realized his opponent didn't want one either. Peter and him did a full barrel roll, putting Peter suddenly on top of him, knees to either side. He swung a punch and the Guillotine's head rocked sideways. Peter swung with him, ending up on his back. He hooked his legs under the wrestler's and threaded his arms under the crook of the man's, looping them back up to clench behind his neck. The man couldn't move.

And then the referee was back and he was counting. The Guillotine flailed, but Peter held him, and then there was something loud coming from the crowd, but a weird kind of loud. Not even loud at all, just heavy, oppressive.

It was silence.

And then the numbers.

Eight…. Nine.

Climb guy gasped. "Oh… my…—"

Then, "Ten."

A bell.

And Madness.


End file.
